


Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still

by Todteufelritter



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/F, Mortality, Pining, Tearjerker, Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29415339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todteufelritter/pseuds/Todteufelritter
Summary: Adora and Sea Hawk are both missing the women they love before Heart Part 1. Sea Hawk sings the world's most heartbreaking sea shanty and Adora tries not to feel her feelings.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still

**Author's Note:**

> This is my shameless effort to get in on the Sea Shanty thing, with a tearjerking fic that features one of my favorite sea songs (technically a victorian parlor song with a strong nautical theme, not a true Shanty). Here’s my favorite version by the great Jeff Warner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDud8Q377zE&ab_channel=VicandTinaSmith or here is a spotify version: https://open.spotify.com/track/650psgE0UmOcDM1yVfO4sK?si=OgyYCDnvQae-9h11LUH1dA. This happens just before Heart Part 1. Anyway, here’s Sea Hawk like you haven’t seen him before.

The whole company gathered around the cave, somewhere between nervous excitement, hope and dread. Bow was strumming on a lute of some kind, Glimmer was snuggled onto his shoulder, and Sea Hawk and Casta...well Casta was getting awfully close to Sea Hawk while Sea Hawk was making muscles and joking. Spinerella and Netossa were entwined around each other, and Perfuma was playing with a flower. Shadow Weaver was...wherever she was, Adora was glad not to see her. And Adora was alone, in the shadows, looking at the glow in her chest and wondering if she’d ever had a chance for anything different. She looked to the entrance again. Catra was gone, still. It was foolish to think she was coming back. Adora couldn’t even think of what it meant. It was too large, too painful, too inevitable and obvious that this was always going to happen. She had been foolish to think any differently. Adora had thought she'd thrown off her destiny, she'd started to think there might be an 'after' but in the face of the fate of everyone she loved and the entire universe, 'after' wasn't important. She knew what she had to do, more clearly than she had in months. The rest was just a distraction, and soon enough it wouldn't matter at all, probably.

Over her shoulder, Adora heard Sea Hawk speak in that melodious, theatrical voice of his. “As much as I love the company of my true friends, I cannot forget my sweet Mermista. I never have been able to forget her, no matter how I have tried! And so, my spirit turns to song…”

Sea Hawk whipped out his concertina, the little octagonal squeeze box that he kept...somewhere. Swift Wind groaned, and even from here Adora could hear Glimmer exhale in mild annoyance. Sea Hawk ignored them, or didn’t notice. He played a long, plaintive note, and then another. There was no jaunty beat, no fluttering fingers on the buttons. Just those droning, somber notes and Sea Hawk’s strong tenor.

“It's been a year since last we met,  
We may never meet again.  
I have struggled to forget  
But the struggle was in vain.”

Adora looked up. It was obvious who Sea Hawk was singing about, but for Adora 'Her' could be only one person. She had struggled to forget, especially after she broke the sword, when Catra had disappeared and wasn't even there as her enemy anymore. Even before that Adora had struggled to forget the purrs, the warmth of Catra curled up with her, the feeling of downy fur on her skin. She had struggled to forget all the times those vividly mismatched eyes were soft and tender, not hard and angry and full of hate and spite.

"For her voice lives on the breeze,  
And her spirit comes at will,  
In the midnight on the seas  
Her bright smile haunts me still.  
In the midnight on the seas  
Her bright smile haunts me still."

Her voice had haunted Adora's dreams, even if it hadn't lived on the breeze. It had come back to her, as if from the dead, in the cold dark between the stars. And every memory had come flooding back with it. Anything she had managed to forget came back when she heard those words over Darla's speakers. And that smile, no, those smiles - playfully mocking, eager and bright, soft and gentle - haunted her. They would until the day she died. Which might be soon enough. Maybe her memory of that smile would outlive her, somehow. If anything did. 

"I have sailed 'neath alien skies,  
I have chartered hazard's path,  
I have seen the storm arise  
Like a giant in his wrath.  
Every danger I have known  
That a reckless life can fill,  
Though her presence is now flown,  
Her bright smile haunts me still.  
Though her presence is now flown,  
Her bright smile haunts me still."

Adora had faced death a thousand times, she had journeyed across the stars, she had stared down tyrants and walked on lost worlds and defied her own fate and the will of everyone and everything that has made her who she was. She was face to face with the end of the world for the third time in her life. And through it all there had been Catra, taunting her, haunting her. Adora felt a familiar ache in her heart and her guts build and rise - an ache that had grown so much worse in the last few weeks.

"At the first sweet dawn of light,  
When I gaze upon the deep,  
Her form still fills my sight  
While the stars their vigil keep.  
When I close my aching eyes  
Sweet dreams my memory fill,  
And from sleep when I arise  
Her bright smile haunts me still.  
And from sleep when I arise  
Her bright smile haunts me still."

Sea Hawk finished with tears in his eyes, and the whole room was silent, the last note of his concertina echoing slightly against the walls.

Adora's thoughts filled the silence. She had never been able to forget Catra in her dreams. She never would. This was her life. There was nothing else. "What do you want?" She felt want, deep within her. She didn't know it, didn't dare to name it or follow that want through to where it led. If she did, she could feel how powerful and dangerous it was and if she even thought about it she knew it would overwhelm her. And it didn't matter what she wanted, since she knew what she needed to do. Answering the question would only make everything harder. But she knew enough to know that she wanted Catra, here, now. If she died tomorrow (she probably would) she would be happy if she could have Catra beside her, just for tonight. 

But Adora couldn't afford even that half of a want. Adora looked at her friends again. Bow was starting up his lute again, Swift Wind was complaining, Casta was sidling up to Sea Hawk again. It was time. Adora tried to transform, just thinking "For the Honor of Greyskull!" As hard as she could. She felt She Ra fizzle and wane. Lost her again. She thought of Catra, wherever she was. Once Adora brought the Failsafe to the Heart, Catra would be safe. She couldn't be with Catra now...Catra couldn't stand being there when Adora...did what she needed to do. But she could keep Catra safe. She could keep all of them safe. She held out her hand, felt herself glow and grow, and grasped her sword. Maybe some day Catra could look back and forgive her. And by then what Adora wanted wouldn't matter anyway.


End file.
